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Saturday, 28 April 2012

Here I am again, playing catch-up with blogging my crafty creations. The more I blog, the more I remember the completed projects tucked away in the various cwtchy corners of my overcrowded home! It seems I can either blog or create...

This little book is made of chipboard from packaging, covered in velvet paper ( Me LOOOVE!) and lined with marbled paper ( by my fair hands – I adore this technique!), and finished off with Tim Holtz hardware.

The seahorse on this slide mailer is made of polymer clay, using the faux ivory recipe – you can find it here - with foiling glue blodged on (technical term) after it was cooked and gilding flakes applied.

( I live by the sea – I can see the Bristol Channel from my living room window – so the sea does seem to creep into a lot of what I do, somehow….)
Now, having attracted your attention with the promise of Blog Candy, I am offering this rather chunky ATC in a shameless attempt to attract comments and followers!

If you’d like this ATC, which features Ultra-thick embossing, please follow me (if you don’t already do so) and leave a comment. On Saturday 5 May I will choose a lucky winner. (I will be VERY SAD (sob, sob!) if no-one likes it so I am very nervous right now…please comment...please (makes puppy-dog eyes)...)

Cameo/Craft Robo files

I’ve set up a separate page for these. I’ve added a couple more – I will be uploading pics of projects made using them – but wanted to get the files out there. The Dissolving Card is proving quite popular and I am working on the circular version – watch this space! I’ve also just uploaded two “Cut and fold” lacé style files - a circle and a panel- that you might like.

I set out to reproduce Tim Holtz’s tag for March (you can see it here) only somewhere along the line it went a bit wrong….

Because the woodgrain stamp I used wasn’t big enough to cover the stamp in one go I needed to do more than one stamp. The stamp is wood-mounted (from Hero Arts) I couldn’t see where to line it up. I do own a stamp positioner but forgot about it (I very rarely use it) so guessed where the join would be. It wasn’t my finest hour. However, as a crafter I dislike waste I thought I’d cover the join with a bit of bakers’ twine.

And at that point the tag went from pretty butterflies to Wild West.

This is how it turned out…

Rubber stamps are from Creative Impressions coloured in with Promarkers.

Saturday, 21 April 2012

A couple of years ago I posted my (rather garbled) instructions as to how to make a dissolving card. You can find them by going back through the blog posts, but here are the pictures again to remind you-

I’m not the world’s most accurate with a blade (the number of bits I’ve gouged out of rulers – even metal ones – you wouldn’t believe!) so my Silhouette Cameo (upgrade from my Robo) is a boon and a blessing. I’ve been busy converting some of the templates for kinetic cards into Silhouette format and thought I’d share.

Sunday, 15 April 2012

Have I mentioned Lady Ermintrude? Lady E (Ermintrude Duffryn-Felix, that is) is my Steampunk alter-ego. She’s a plucky gel, ready to pop off with her husband, Major Tom Felix, for a spot of dinosaur-hunting in the Forgotten Valley or for a jaunt in the Nautilus with Capt. Nemo.

(Are you worried about me yet? I am.)

Anyway, this is Lady E’s trunk in miniature. It’s adapted from a pattern that I bought from Following The Paper Trail. It’s intended to hold mini albums and very clear instructions for making them are included. Well worth the money.

Lady E keeps her jewellery in the top of the trunk (and I keep my Tim Holtz Distress Stains in the bottom – we have an arrangement about sharing). This necklace was inspired by a voyage on the Nautilus..

Tim Holtz sprocket gears and an octopus pendant found in Hobbycraft feature in this piece. Actually, I’m thinking of adding some gorgeous peacock-blue AB crystals between the sprockets….mmmm….

Saturday, 14 April 2012

Lucky, lucky me got a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas, an upgrade from my Craft Robo. I never really got to grips with the Robo – it was a real faff to get it to cut anything other than paper. The Cameo, however, is BRILLIANT. I cut the little bird house out of Papermania Kraft card at the first attempt ( if you’re interested, it was blade depth 3, speed 9, thickness 25).

I covered it with paper from my stash and mounted on a Wendy Vecchi Artparts spool, also covered with paper from the stash, and enhanced with an Artparts leaf, some beads and dangly bits from the jewellery making stash, and finished off with the Ferro’d fabric flower (well, I had to use it somewhere). A few feathers and a Tim Holtz adage tag and it’s a des-res for a passing Fairy to move into and grant some wishes….

And while I’m speaking of Artparts…

My first project with them was this key hook thingy.

I think it was very brave of me to actually USE them and not just add them to my stash… (my PRECIOUS….)

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

I’m a very sporadic blogger. I mess around with a bit of this & that but I always come back to making cards. Two of the people who really inspire me are Tim Holtz and Sue Wilson. I love Tim’s grungy Steampunky style and signed up for his Creative Chemistry 101 online classes – just BRILLIANT. I’m not a novice but I learned something every day – it was well worth the modest fee!

Sue Wilson does amazing things with a bit of card and a Spellbinders die. Not quick cards but the fun is in the doing, after all. Here are my latest efforts!

The “Put some gears on it” stamp I made using my Imagepac kit – the daylight supplies have been discontinued (sob, sob) so once I’ve used up the sachets I’ve got I will have to either invest in the UV kit or just give up.

It’s a bit scary when you Google on a subject and get directed to your own blog.. which is what happened yesterday when I went looking for more Croco paints and techniques. I had to order more (from Craft Barn) as I’m just having SO much fun with it lately.

My small but select band of followers have probably realised that I discover a technique and do it to death, then move on to something else. My latest craze has been the Viva Croco paints on papier-mache faux book boxes – here are my latest efforts-

The butterfly book features NEW COLOURS (hurrah!) ( I got some Platinum and Azure to add to the gold, copper, bronze, turquoise and blackberry I already had – and I’ve ordered some orange, thanks, Craft Barn)

Anyway, I got some Ferro paints from Create & Craft because they were in the sale – four BIG pots – and then sat there thinking, OK, what should I do with them? My friend Google to the rescue again and I found this..

Thoroughly inspired, I die-cut some Tim Holtz gadget gears out of grey board (from packaging – I never throw out useable board!) and Ferro’d them. I am well pleased with the result.

I then thought – I wonder if it’ll work on fabric? So had to try it. Result – yes, it does. You get a heavy, flexible, piece. Had to run that through my Vagabond as well..

Not wild about the colour – I used the colour thatI liked least in case it all went HORRIBLY wrong – but was happy with the result. Back to Craft Barn for more colours as this is going to work so well in Steampunk stuff…

I’m a bad blogger. I’ve loads of craft projects which I haven’t got round to sharing, including some Yuletide greeting cards. Better late than never...

I die-cut some of the snowflake shapes out of double-sided adhesive sheet and stuck them to the white card., (leaving the release paper on the top surface) went over it with distress ink (broken china and dusty concord) stamped some snowflake designs and embossed in white powder, then took the release paper off the snowflakes and sprinkled glitter over the sticky snowflakes.

This box came with a crystal inside. It is so sturdy that it was a pity not to do something with it! So it was out with the Eco-Green paints and sprockets, some chipboard numbers I got from a pound shop, and some Tim Holtz Gadget Gears cut from greyboard. It came out pretty well.